HOBBIES: THE PERSONAL PATH TO CREATIVITY

To be or become “creative” is a familiar imperative in our society, but many people are often at a loss as to how to proceed. We believe the first step is to find time for imaginative play. The second (which is really more of the first) is to get a hobby.

Hobbies come in all shapes and sizes: people collect stamps, build matchstick castles, carve whistles, turn wood, knit potholders or socks or intricately designed sweaters, put pen or paintbrush or scissors to paper, fold paper, make paper; devote each sunrise to the treadmill, each evening to yoga; plan floral landscapes each winter; plant seeds in spring; draw maps of imaginary places; rebuild vintage cars; make music, piece quilts, bake bread. Simple or not-so-simple, esoteric or commonplace, quixotic or downright practical, hobbies range through all the domestic arts, the physical arts, the fine arts, and the technological arts. Whether we spend hours a day or days a month or weeks a year, we call any voluntary “specialized pursuit” that takes place outside one’s occupation a hobby.

Hobbyists are amateurs—that is to say, the most intrinsically motivated of lovers. They court their pastime, not for conquest or for gain, but for pure pleasure. Hobbies are, quintessentially, forms of play, much like the rough and tumble, make-believe and constructive games that fill early and middle childhood. And as play, hobbies bring us a great deal of unexpected benefit. First, we make things of our own (such as poems, pies, photographs). Second, we gain personal knowledge (a lifetime bird list becomes an introduction to ornithology; collecting baseball cards or coins or stamps an introduction to culture and history). Third, we learn new and often generalizable skills (carpentry, calligraphy and embroidery, for instance, all teach fine motor control and hand-eye coordination). In the doing, hobbies also cultivate personal creativity, that capacity we all share for heartfelt experience, unique thought and meaningful expression of what matters to us most.

Consider the moon-struck testimony of Winston Churchill, an eminent politician and statesman of the twentieth century, who fell in love with painting in midlife. In a small book called Painting as a Pastime, he wrote:

“To have reached the age of forty without ever handling a brush or fiddling with a pencil, to have regarded with mature eye the painting of pictures of any kind as a mystery, to have stood agape before the chalk of the pavement artist, and then suddenly to find oneself plunged in the middle of a new and intense form of interest and action with paints and palettes and canvases, and not to be discouraged by results, is an astonishing and enriching experience. I hope it may be shared by others. I should be glad if these lines induced others to try the experiment which I have tried, and if some at least were to find themselves dowered with an absorbing new amusement delightful to themselves…
I hope this is modest enough: because there is no subject on which I feel more humble or yet at the same time more natural. I do not presume to explain how to paint, but only how to get enjoyment. Do not turn the superior eye of critical passivity upon these efforts. Buy a paint-box and have a try…[T]here is close at hand a wonderful new world of thought and craft, a sunlit garden gleaming with light and colour... [And if you are inclined to reconnoiter this sphere], then be persuaded that the first [and only] quality that is needed is Audacity… We [who are hobbyists] must not be too ambitious. We cannot aspire to masterpieces. We may content ourselves with a joy ride in a paint-box...”

Churchill was being modest. Many of his paintings were quite lovely—nice enough to be reprinted and sold in England on note cards and ceramic vases. Well, perhaps his stature as a politician has had something to do with that, but his paintings were certainly as worthy of hanging on the living room wall as Aunt Sally’s calligraphy. The point Churchill wanted to make, and which we want to make, too, is that if you cultivate your hobby with all the love and devotion of a true amateur, recreation becomes a form of creation that recreates you.

And that re-creation can set you on the path towards novel invention and discovery. There is, in fact, connection between personal (little c) creativity and public (Big C) creativity—those innovations in art, science, technology, politics, you name it, that affect wide circles of the human community. Every world-renowned poet, every Nobel-Prize winning scientist first impressed much smaller circles of family and friends, perhaps when a child or a young adult. Everyone who achieves creative impact at the highest levels has, simply put, developed personal creativity into public commitment and contribution.

There’s a lot here that we’d like to address in coming posts: the necessity for self-invented play and the come-back of the amateur; the importance of artistic hobbies for many top-flight thinkers in the sciences; and the role of that polymathy as an educational and creative strategy.

For now, our focus is on the private joy-rides to be found in humble hobbies. Whether we take classes, read how-to books or go it alone, whatever hobby we choose we open ourselves up to imaginative thinking, discovery and exploration. And because that learning is self-choice, it is also (or should be!) by definition fun. In our work-driven world, that may make hobby something of a dirty word, but take a hint from Churchill. Throw into your avocational mix a pinch of arrogance, which in the best sense means to take upon yourself the right to do and be, and add a dash of audacity to make and to invent your own way.

Because when it comes right down to it, you have to believe you can be creative before you can be creative, a poser we intend to explore in future posts.

Robert Root-Bernstein received his AB in Biochemistry and a Ph.D. in History of Science from Princeton University. He did post-doctoral work at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where he was awarded one of the first MacArthur Fellowships. A Professor in the Physiology Department at Michigan State University since 1987, Bob studies the evolution of physiological control systems and autoimmune diseases, as well as science-arts interactions. In his spare time, Bob makes various forms of visual art, practices photography, and builds models. He has participated in several group shows.
Michele Root-Bernstein received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1975 and a Ph.D. in History from Princeton University in 1981. She has taught history, writing and creativity studies from grade school to college. She is a “Kennedy Center Teaching Artist” and an Adjunct Faculty member at Michigan State University. Currently, she is near completion of a book on the invention of imaginary worlds in childhood and the relationship of complex play to creative giftedness. Michele also writes haiku for journals across the U.S. and Canada. A selection of her poems appears in A New Resonance 6, Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku (Red Moon Press, 2009).
Together, Bob and Michele are co-authors of Sparks of Genius, The 13 Thinking Tools of the World’s Most Creative People (Houghton Mifflin, 1999) and numerous articles on imaginative thinking, polymathy and trans-disciplinary education.